On Friday, September 19, Russian fighter jets violated Estonia’s border, flying over its territory for 12 minutes. In connection to the incident, for the first time in 34 years, Estonia called for a meeting of the UN Security Council and activated Article 4 in the NATO treaty.
The speeches at the Security Council meeting once again outlined the positions of the sides: Western allies condemned the violation of Estonia’s territorial integrity, the United States promised to defend every inch of NATO territory if necessary, while Russia’s representative, as usual, accused Estonia of Russophobia, calling the incident part of the “blame everything on Russia” show. The harshest words came from Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, whose country had recently been targeted by Russian drones: “If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it. You have been warned,” he declared.
The chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson called the Security Council meeting a great day for Estonian diplomacy, which achieved maximum results. “In addition to informing the world about what happened and refuting Russia’s brazen lies, we received strong support from allies and friends all over the world. The results of many years of work are clear: Estonia is not alone!” he said.
In Estonia, the incident did not cause panic: people here are used to reports of Russian aircraft once again violating Estonian airspace. Vaindloo Island—the northernmost in Estonia—is located at roughly the same distance from the Estonian coast and the nearest Russian island, forming a kind of protrusion that Russian planes regularly cut across when flying along the northern shore.
The previous incident of this kind took place on September 7, when a Russian Mi-8 helicopter crossed the border in nearly the same place. In June, a Russian Emergencies Ministry Il-76 transport aircraft stayed over Estonian territory for four minutes. In July, near the same island in Estonian waters, the Russian border guard vessel “Sochi 500” remained for more than half an hour. In none of these cases was Article 4 of the NATO treaty activated, nor was the UN Security Council convened.
Most such border violations usually ended with the Estonian foreign minister making a more or less sharp statement and a protest note being handed to a Russian diplomat. Abroad, such events generally did not even cross the news threshold. This time, however, the violation did not go unnoticed. As MEP Yana Toom remarked ironically, she learned from Politico that Russian fighter jets were flying over Estonia many hours before the Estonian government deigned to report it.
There were at least two reasons for this: first, too little time had passed since 19 Russian drones were detected and shot down in Poland; second, just a few days before the incident near Vaindloo, the Russian-Belarusian military exercise “Zapad 2025” had concluded. Analysts noted that in meaning and format, these drills resembled those held in 2021 on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but there are other historical parallels as well.
“[To shoot down the plane or not] is a dilemma that reminds me of Georgia in August 2008,” remarked Chairman of the Estonian Parliament’s Defense Committee Kalev Stoicescu on Facebook. “Back then, Russia brought into Georgia (South Ossetia) through the Roki Tunnel heavily armed ‘peacekeepers,’ with an obvious intention to attack, but it was Georgia that fired the first ‘shot,’” he wrote. “That case, of course, was different, since on land everything happens differently than in the air, where a border and sovereignty violator can, essentially, leave the territory of another state within seconds and pretend nothing happened.”
“Other things to do”
Considering that Russia views both Poland and the Baltic states as potential adversaries, and one of its obvious goals is to test NATO’s resilience, such provocations were expected — and that is likely why they generated such a stir, including among global media outlets. In Estonia itself, however, many experts reacted calmly to the news.
“I slept through the news about Russian MiG-31s flying over Estonian territory. That says something. If you had other things to do, it means this incident wasn’t that important,” noted security expert Ilmar Raag on Facebook.
He notes that since September this year, the number of hybrid incidents has increased — among them he includes the appearance of drones in Poland and the sabotage that left thousands of households in Berlin without electricity. At the same time, he argues that at present Russia does not have the resources to escalate such incidents into a conventional war. “According to doctrine, if Russia really decided to attack Estonia, for example by launching Kinzhal missiles (range over 450 km) from MiG-31s, it could do so approximately from the Novgorod-Ladoga line, which would guarantee the aircraft’s immunity from most NATO air defense systems. In the event of a real attack, their planes would not show up at the Estonian border,” Raag explained.
Like many other Estonian experts and politicians, he emphasizes that such flights are provocative in themselves, even if the border had not been violated. At the same time, in his view, both opposing sides achieved their goals: “NATO is currently trying to avoid accidental escalation. And they managed it perfectly. The Russian Federation is trying to reconnoiter and intimidate. And they managed that as well,” he believes.
In Raag’s opinion, hybrid attacks in Europe will become more frequent over the next year, until Russia suffers direct damage. “Let’s recall that Russia stopped provocations in Turkish airspace after its Su-24 was shot down in 2015,” he draws a parallel. He also does not rule out the possibility that the next provocation could spiral out of control and trigger a small local armed conflict, even if overall, Russia is trying to avoid a direct attack on NATO countries.
A distraction from Ukraine
Observers also name another likely goal of such provocations — flights over foreign territory are meant to demonstrate NATO’s border vulnerability and force the alliance to focus on its own defense, potentially reducing military and financial aid to Ukraine. Russia’s offensive there is making little progress, while Ukrainian drones are penetrating deeper into Russian territory.
“In fact, the choice is simple. Either [the Russians] carry out provocations. Or we shoot them down, and in that case NATO would be forced to redeploy air defenses. That is probably the calculation. Then not 20 Shaheds but 200 would reach Kyiv. Choose. Tell Zelensky — have him write to Erdogan so that from now on he supplies ‘Bayraktars’ not to Ukraine, but to Estonia,” quipped well-known military journalist Arkady Babchenko on Facebook.
Estonia practically has no indigenous air defense; it has given a significant part of its armaments to defend Ukraine, he reminds critics who consider NATO’s response to the provocation too weak. Neither side has sufficient resources for a full-scale war on a second front — at least for now, Babchenko explains. “We are returning to Cold War times, when such provocations were a constant element of the military-political game,” he characterizes the current situation.
Having reacted firmly at the diplomatic level, Estonia continues to strengthen its air defenses. No one here believes such provocations will stop in the foreseeable future. “We must remain calm and continue to strengthen our defenses. It may be necessary to station additional aircraft at Ämari, i.e., the Baltic air policing mission at Ämari air base. Estonia will receive medium-range air defense systems that we have already purchased. It is possible, and in my view necessary, to respond to Russia (together with our allies) asymmetrically — for example, by using measures on gas and oil exports,” proposes the chairman of the defense committee, Kalev Stoicescu.
“In any case, the response must be such that it inflicts damage on Russia. Every blatant provocation must be followed by a damaging countermeasure,” he says. “There is no other way.”
